Based in Brazil, West Africa, and South East Asia, Petrus is a global Oil & Gas services group employing approximately 400 people.

After evaluating the market since June 2017, the parties have entered into a partnership agreement to offer the Oil & Gas sector inspection and survey services using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle: the A18D AUV.

The A18D AUV is designed and manufactured by ECA Group, to dive up to 3000m depth and work autonomously for 24 hours. It can carry out inspection and 3D mapping missions, revealing seabed conditions before or after construction / installation of an underwater structure, pipeline or cable and also before, during and post decommissioning of subsea installations.

As part of this contract, ECA Group will lease the AUV to Petrus, while also providing operational support. Petrus, with its solid experience in the Oil & Gas market, will carry out and coordinate missions from preparation to data processing and delivery of results to the customer.

This partnership guarantees to ECA Group a cumulative turnover of € 6 million over the next four years, which can increase according to the rate of use of the underwater robot. Depending on the commercial success, additional A18D AUVs could be commissioned as part of this partnership.

Finally, it can be extended to other robots in the ECA Group range such as A9 type portable AUVs (A9-S or A9-E) or ROVING BAT ROV cleaning and inspection ROVs according to the needs.

The use of autonomous underwater drones is a growing demand within the Oil & Gas industry, first because they significantly reduce the cost of operations compared to traditional processes that require larger and more expensive vessels as well as longer durations for a given operation and second because they provide superior data quality.

This agreement is the largest ever signed by ECA Group for its AUVs in the Oil & Gas sector. It is the result of R&D efforts that ECA Group has been conducting for several years in this sector.